Sharing our lives as a complex family

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog. This blog is primarily about my new adventure, writing a memoir. But since my memoir is about me and my family, of course we will feature here as well.

The book I’m writing will have a theme of Hope Deferred. This is because, in parenting Ben, we have gotten our hopes up many times, whether for the end if chemo, a promising surgery that fails to bring the quality of life upgrade we expect, or a new health crisis, each time hope is swept away with bitter disappointment.

The conventional wisdom of the Proverbs proclaims that, “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life”. Indeed it is, but after years of heartsickness, our family has grown a tree of life right in the midst of our deferred hope, and my goal is to share with you our tree of life.

Writing itself is a tree of life for me in yet another season of deferred hope and heartache. We are presently in the process of yet another major diagnosis for Ben, and I am verklempt. I find myself unable to speak of it without tears, so instead I write. This writing is a catharsis of years of struggle, and my way of planting a tree if life, yet again, in the middle of a desert of despair.

Which brings me to running. Running is my way of coping. No matter what happens, when I run I create a space for my mind to organize all the chaos that medically complex parenting can bring, not to mention the every day twists and turns that just happen in life. I don’t fully understand how, but I know that a long run releases beneficial brain chemicals, and it’s the best drug I could imagine. Running is my happy pill, well, runn